Reference services in academic libraries often focus on user education and giving students the skills to perform their own searches. This article describes a new Research Concierge Service established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic by Ozarks Technical Community College (OTC) in southwest Missouri. The service entails library staff curating a…

For more than 30 years, Peter Senge's theory of learning organizations has influenced the study of leadership and organizations. Researchers have studied various components of his framework: team cognition and mental models, team learning, shared vision, systems thinking, and personal mastery. But few articles have explored what it looks like in…

Applying a content warning to metadata and archival descriptions is a practice that libraries increasingly embrace, even though the American Library Association considers content labeling to be censorship under the Library Bill of Rights. The language used in a content warning, such as "offensive" or "harmful," carries…

The experience of COVID-19 has prompted a reckoning within both special collections and the larger library community about how we do our work. This article provides some thoughts about the "new normal" of working in the COVID-19 era. It shares some informal conversations with colleagues as well as guides to sources for further reflection.

As open educational resources (OER) becomes a more established concept, its growth and continued success not only center around the creation of new content but also depend upon the development and evolution of existing content, licenses permitting. The evolution of and persistent access to existing content requires easily editable works and the…

Federal mandates requiring that publicly funded research be made openly accessible recast scholarly information as public information and provide an impetus to join the efforts of scholarly communication and government information programs in United States research libraries. Most major research libraries are long-standing participants in the…

The increasing interdisciplinarity of scientific research creates both challenges and opportunities for librarians. The liaison model may be inadequate for supporting campus research that represents multiple disciplines and geographically dispersed departments. The identification of units, researchers, and projects is a first step in planning and…

Our institutions of record are facing a new digital knowledge management challenge: stakeholder communities are now expecting customized Web interfaces to institutional knowledge repositories, online environments where community members can contribute content and see themselves represented, as well as access archived resources. Digital curation…

During the period in which Duane Webster led the Association for Research Libraries (ARL), powerful commercial interests sought for their own financial purposes the information resources essential for providing education and performing research. Juxtaposed was the Internet with its inherent capacity to democratizing these resources. Commercial…

The rise of digital repositories is helping libraries reinvent themselves. The benefits to libraries and universities creating institutional repositories (IRs) are great as libraries restructure, pursue collaborations, and re-position themselves to become major digital publishers and broadcasters in the scholarly world. They will no longer be…

The Google Book Search Library Project, in which millions of books from libraries will be scanned and made searchable on the Web, has led to controversy and legal action. Publishers are suing Google for copyright infringement, while Google claims their use falls under the fair use privilege of the "Copyright Act". An overview of the library…

Describes a project at the University of Mississippi Libraries to catalog purchased electronic resources so that access to these resources is available only via the Web-based library catalog. Discusses collaboration between cataloging and systems personnel; and describes the MARC catalog record field that contains the information needed to locate…

Discusses the concepts of marketing and relationship management as they apply to libraries. Topics include perceptions of the profession; environments that libraries operate in; connecting content and users through access and services; and the need for reliable and consistent collection of effective data. (Author/LRW)

Suggests that varied and often understated uses of copyrighted materials exist in academic settings. Introduces four "frames" of reference: Academic, Technological, Social, and Market. Presents court cases relevant to each frame. Explores two scenarios involving use of copyrighted materials. As technology increases both access and control, the…

Providing service to visually impaired persons can provide a special challenge to librarians. This article provides suggestions on making libraries more accessible. Both technological solutions and staff training are addressed. (Author)